There has been another huge purchase by social media site Facebook. It is buying WhatsApp, the fast-growing instant messaging service. Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg, who is paying $19 billion (13.8 billion euros), praised the speed at which his new acquisition has grown: “No one in the history of the world has ever done something like this.” In the five years since it was set up, WhatsApp has amassed over 450 million users, adding an average of one million daily. It handles 50 billion messages every day – and growing – even as the number of SMS texts that are sent is declining. Eighteen billion of those are outgoing messages, many to multiple WhatsApp recipients. As with other messaging services, users can send photos, videos, and audio messages. Facebook obviously sees this as the future, as Tim Bradshaw, a technology reporter with the Financial Times explained: “This is a very hot market at the moment, there have been many different of these chat apps popping up. There’s WeChat in China, there’s Line in Japan and other parts of Asia – but WhatsApp is by far the biggest of all of them, which is why Facebook has paid such a huge price.” The message of youth The advantage for Facebook is that it gets access to younger users who have never joined the social networking site and are not likely to. They are increasingly using instant messaging, via their internet connected smart phones, rather than text messages. “When you look at how much growth WhatsApp has managed to achieve over the last number of years from about 200 million users to 450 million users – which is way more than the likes of Twitter – I think it is a way for Facebook to engage the younger market it has been losing favour with over recent quarters,” said Brenda Kelly, a market analyst with IG. Facebook – which has seen its growth slow recently – also gains a massive amount of data about real-time social interactions. $19 billion! On Wall Street investors obviously felt it was a very expensive acquisition – with Facebook paying $42 (30.6 euros) for every WhatsApp customer – and its shares fell in value. Rick Summer, an analyst with Morningstar, said: “This is a tacit admission that Facebook can’t do things that other networks are doing.”...

Facebook has agreed to buy the mobile messaging company WhatsApp for $19bn (£11.4bn), the social network has announced. The company said in a statement that it would pay $4bn (£2.4bn) in cash and $15bn (£9bn) in Facebook shares as part of the deal. The app’s founders and employees will get $3bn (£1.8bn) of the shares as restricted stock that will vest over four years after the deal closes. The purchase marks the largest single acquisition in Facebook’s 10-year history. WhatsApp is a real-time mobile messaging service with more than 450 million monthly users. The app has more than one million new registered users each day. WhatsApp will “continue to operate independently and retain its brand” despite the acquisition, Facebook said. “WhatsApp is on a path to connect one billion people. The services that reach that milestone are all incredibly valuable,” Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said. Founded by a Ukrainian immigrant who dropped out of college, Jan Koum, and a Stanford alumnus, Brian Acton, WhatsApp is a Silicon Valley startup fairytale. “I’ve known (WhatsApp CEO) Jan (Koum) for a long time and I’m excited to partner with him and his team to make the world more open and connected.” He added that the service “doesn’t get as much attention in the US as it deserves because its community started off growing in Europe, India and Latin America. “But WhatsApp is a very important and valuable worldwide communication network. “In fact, WhatsApp is the only widely used app we’ve ever seen that has more engagement and a higher percent of people using it daily than Facebook itself.” The acquisition will also see Mr Koum – a former Yahoo! engineer – join Facebook’s board of directors. “WhatsApp’s extremely high user engagement and rapid growth are driven by the simple, powerful and instantaneous messaging capabilities we provide,” Mr Koum said. “We’re excited and honoured to partner with Mark and Facebook as we continue to bring our product to more people around the world.” Facebook is known to make bold moves to thwart competitors – it famously bought Instagram for $1bn after a weekend of...

There has been another huge purchase by social media site Facebook. It is buying WhatsApp, the fast-growing instant messaging service. Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg, who is paying $19 billion (13.8 billion euros), praised the speed at which his new acquisition has grown: “No one in the history of the world has ever done something like this.” In the five years since it was set up, WhatsApp has amassed over 450 million users,...

Facebook has agreed to buy the mobile messaging company WhatsApp for $19bn (£11.4bn), the social network has announced. The company said in a statement that it would pay $4bn (£2.4bn) in cash and $15bn (£9bn) in Facebook shares as part of the deal. The app’s founders and employees will get $3bn (£1.8bn) of the shares as restricted stock that will vest over four years after the deal closes. The purchase marks the largest single...

Efforts to rid Twitter of false posts are to be the focus of a new UK-led study. During the 2011 riots in London, there were widespread and untrue claims that London Zoo animals had been set free. Social media has also been used in global conflicts to spread dangerous and damaging rumours about what is going on. Now, an international group of researchers led by the University of Sheffield aims to find a way to verify information...